Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, which recently unveiled a demonstration truck tire made with 63% sustainable-material content, will focus more on sustainability as a part of their overall program to help the automotive industry reduce carbon emissions.
In an exclusive interview with PMV Middle East Kerry Watts, director of Truck PBU – emerging markets at Goodyear, said, “Tires as a part of the automotive industry are very much linked to carbon emissions. They are the third largest contributor to carbon emissions.”Â
He explained that tires contribute in two ways to the sustainability initiative: how you make them and how you use them.
“Tires we see now are the result of some 125 years of scientific research, a lot of it in polymer sciences, and in a very specific way that act,” said Watts while adding that natural rubber used to be a major component in tires, particularly truck tires, but now oil-based derivatives and chemicals have replaced the natural rubber to a great extent.
“Now the tires have some natural rubber, some silica, some petrochemical-based materials, some fabrics, and some colts. So when we say that our tires have 63% recyclable materials,” said Watts, while revealing that besides this, the company has also replaced some petroleum-based materials in our Metro Miler bus tires with bio-based soybean oil compounds. These tires are in production today.
According to him, while this focus on being more environmentally friendly is also a growing trend in the larger automotive and fleet industries, going forward the real challenge will be how to continue to drive sustainable materials without impacting performance.
“We don’t sacrifice performance as we work towards sustainability.The challenge is how to strike a balance between them,” he said.
Electric vehicles are heavy, and that additional weight comes with challenges, moreover, as compared to internal combustion engines, electric vehicles have much greater torque.
The immediate force that goes from putting the foot on the accelerator into the drive train and then to the wheels is very different. The compounds that are used to make electric vehicle tires need to have that much tenacity to handle. We already have products with these applications.
He revealed that you cannot have the same size tire fit into electric vehicles, loads are different, dimensions are different, and performance characteristics are also different.
On the future of the electrification trend, he said, “I think the electrification trend within the automotive industry has to be understood in the bigger scheme of things—the drive towards sustainability.”